This is a site for discussing roleplaying games. Have fun doing so, but there is one major rule: do not discuss political issues that aren't directly and uniquely related to the subject of the thread and about gaming. While this site is dedicated to free speech, the following will not be tolerated: devolving a thread into unrelated political discussion, sockpuppeting (using multiple and/or bogus accounts), disrupting topics without contributing to them, and posting images that could get someone fired in the workplace (an external link is OK, but clearly mark it as Not Safe For Work, or NSFW). If you receive a warning, please take it seriously and either move on to another topic or steer the discussion back to its original RPG-related theme.

Author Topic: Star Wars VII: We've Got Nothing (except stupid CGI tricks)  (Read 20342 times)

Jame Rowe

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • J
  • Posts: 233
Star Wars VII: We've Got Nothing (except stupid CGI tricks)
« Reply #240 on: January 06, 2016, 10:42:49 AM »
Quote from: GameDaddy;872226
With this, I liked both Finn and Rey as well. Also liked Kylo as well...There's a real big unresolved story here... Can Kylo atone for his sins, or is he forever doomed by the choices he made here?

Also, is this just me, or did Kylo come across with a petulant Gamergate hate-on for the non-Jedi ( i.e. ...Non-Geek Jedi) that populated this movie.


I think they may be setting Finn up as a latent force-sensitive.

And yes, Kylo comes across as petulant - and confused. I think they want him to be in order to explain why he turned to the dark side.
Here for the games, not for it being woke or not.

Bedrockbrendan

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12695
Star Wars VII: We've Got Nothing (except stupid CGI tricks)
« Reply #241 on: January 06, 2016, 01:24:34 PM »
Quote from: GameDaddy;872226


Also, is this just me, or did Kylo come across with a petulant Gamergate hate-on for the non-Jedi ( i.e. ...Non-Geek Jedi) that populated this movie.


To me he seemed more like a teenager who is affiliated with a tribe in high school. Emo Kylo Ren is something I hear a lot and I think that fits. I also think it kind of works in a weird way. A friend of mine made the observation that it feels like shows and movies have worked so hard to make complex, nuanced and sophisticated villains over the last few years, it kind of felt good to have a moody and raging villain like this. I think he is basically what happens when you take a whiny young man like Luke and add the dark side on top of hormones. I also think it is interesting that his outbursts are all against physical objects, whereas Vader's were directed at people under his command. Vader's outbursts were more less like a tantrum but actually cost lives. I expect in the next installment he may take that step too.

3rik

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1834
    • https://twitter.com/RPGbericht
Star Wars VII: We've Got Nothing (except stupid CGI tricks)
« Reply #242 on: January 07, 2016, 07:00:23 AM »
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;872258
To me he seemed more like a teenager who is affiliated with a tribe in high school. Emo Kylo Ren is something I hear a lot and I think that fits. I also think it kind of works in a weird way. A friend of mine made the observation that it feels like shows and movies have worked so hard to make complex, nuanced and sophisticated villains over the last few years, it kind of felt good to have a moody and raging villain like this. I think he is basically what happens when you take a whiny young man like Luke and add the dark side on top of hormones. I also think it is interesting that his outbursts are all against physical objects, whereas Vader's were directed at people under his command. Vader's outbursts were more less like a tantrum but actually cost lives. I expect in the next installment he may take that step too.
To me he came across as disturbed and having major control issues, super-powered narcissistic rage. In the next movie he may start secretly torturing defenseless animals.
« Last Edit: January 07, 2016, 07:09:36 AM by 3rik »
It's not Its

"It's said that governments are chiefed by the double tongues" - Ten Bears (The Outlaw Josey Wales)

@RPGbericht

Bradford C. Walker

  • M.A.: Liberal Studies
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1827
    • http://bradfordcwalker.blogspot.com/
Star Wars VII: We've Got Nothing (except stupid CGI tricks)
« Reply #243 on: January 07, 2016, 08:03:59 AM »
Quote from: GameDaddy;872226
With this, I liked both Finn and Rey as well. Also liked Kylo as well...There's a real big unresolved story here... Can Kylo atone for his sins, or is he forever doomed by the choices he made here?

Also, is this just me, or did Kylo come across with a petulant Gamergate hate-on for the non-Jedi ( i.e. ...Non-Geek Jedi) that populated this movie.

Gamergate? What? You looked at a well-executed example of what evil people actually are (instead of what they want you to see, which is what Vader represents), especially those not yet given over to truly homicidal impulses, and you saw Gamergate? Cuckooland called and demanded your repatriation.

Bedrockbrendan

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12695
Star Wars VII: We've Got Nothing (except stupid CGI tricks)
« Reply #244 on: January 07, 2016, 10:26:28 AM »
Quote from: 3rik;872354
To me he came across as disturbed and having major control issues, super-powered narcissistic rage. In the next movie he may start secretly torturing defenseless animals.

I don't think they'll go the animal torturing direction. I certainly hope they don't because I feel like we've had too many villains with diagnosable psychological disorders in the last ten to fifteen years. Also animal torture isn't something I'd be too keen on seeing in a star wars film. As much as I like characters like Tony Soprano, I was kind of enjoying him just being a raging villain because the Dark Side is overwhelming him.

3rik

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1834
    • https://twitter.com/RPGbericht
Star Wars VII: We've Got Nothing (except stupid CGI tricks)
« Reply #245 on: January 07, 2016, 07:54:34 PM »
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;872364
I don't think they'll go the animal torturing direction. I certainly hope they don't because I feel like we've had too many villains with diagnosable psychological disorders in the last ten to fifteen years. Also animal torture isn't something I'd be too keen on seeing in a star wars film. As much as I like characters like Tony Soprano, I was kind of enjoying him just being a raging villain because the Dark Side is overwhelming him.
I wasn't being serious on the animal torture part and I'd definitely not want to see it in a Star Wars film! :)
It's not Its

"It's said that governments are chiefed by the double tongues" - Ten Bears (The Outlaw Josey Wales)

@RPGbericht

Imperator

  • Say hello!
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4000
    • http://elblogdelemperador.wordpress.com
Star Wars VII: We've Got Nothing (except stupid CGI tricks)
« Reply #246 on: January 09, 2016, 03:33:34 AM »
I think it was a great Star Wars film, true to the original trilogy, well written and well executed. It didn't blow my mind like Mad Max did, though, because it's too much of an Episode IV clone, but again, I was glad I saw it, and it definitely got me onboard to see Ep. VIII. I liked the characters a lot, I liked how they treated Solo and Leia, and it felt Star Wars again, unlike Ep. I-III.
« Last Edit: January 09, 2016, 03:38:05 AM by Imperator »
My name is Ramón Nogueras. Running now Vampire: the Masquerade (Giovanni Chronicles IV for just 3 players), and itching to resume my Call of Cthulhu campaign (The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand Man).

Skarg

  • Venerable Gamer
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2380
Star Wars VII: We've Got Nothing (except stupid CGI tricks)
« Reply #247 on: January 09, 2016, 01:32:48 PM »
Quote from: Bren;871925
Refreshing to see a main character who shows fear as well as doubt. But to be fair, Qui Gon Jinn was pretty likable (aside from his interest in that annoying slave-kid).


And his tolerance of Jar Jar binks.
And how they forgot the example of how Alec Guinness demonstrated what a Jedi could be like.

But ya, it's possible to find a few likable things in the Prequels. And in The Force Awakens.

But... they had millions and  millions and millions of dollars. None of them should have had such bad continuity, nor been so mindless and well, outright dumb. Nor so unimaginatively written. Nor so lacking in talent.

Simlasa

  • Lemon Tart
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5832
Star Wars VII: We've Got Nothing (except stupid CGI tricks)
« Reply #248 on: January 09, 2016, 05:14:16 PM »
Quote from: Kiero;810276
If anyone is wondering why this is a big deal (and I think it is, provided they use these guys), have a look at the final fight scene of The Raid 2 (starts around 5:30). Compare and contrast that to the shitty, boring 12-minute-long lightsaber fight at the end of Revenge of the Sith.
Did they hire the guys who choreographed and filmed that fight scene as well? Cause... actors aren't usually the ones coming up with that stuff.

Spike

  • Stroppy Pika of DOOM!!!!!
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8105
  • Tricoteuse
Mini Review
« Reply #249 on: January 09, 2016, 05:55:58 PM »
Saw it, disliked it.  To me its not appreciably better than the prequels, it just fails for entirely different reasons.  If nothing else, it proves to me that JJ Abrams is an over-hyped moppet without any sense as a storyteller.  Here he doesn't have the excuse that was trotted out for the Star Trek films that he'd rather be doing Star Wars.

Plot? What plot?  

Things just happen. There isn't a plot, just a series of random events that are roughly connected by having the same people be involved.  Character motivations are either non-sensical, spurious or entirely driven by 'plot demands'.  What is Kylo Ren's motivation? Well, the movie needs a  bad guy.  Why do Finn and Rey like each other? Well, the movie needs them to want to be buddies.  Why does Han Solo show up when he does? Because... we paid Harrison Ford a lot of money to be in this film, damnit.

Oh look: The bad guys have a giant planet destroying super weapon which they fire at a populated world.

No literally, that just happens.  Billions dead with no build up, no foreshadowing, and really no reason at all except to demonstrate that, yes, the Empire blows up worlds for fun.

The most offensive example may be the very first, and perhaps the subtlest.  Leaving aside Poe, the movie opens with Finn the stormtrooper. Despite a lifetime of indoctrination and training he suddenly decides he doesn't want to be a Stormtrooper anymore.  There is a moment when a fellow stormtrooper has just been shot in front of him (by Poe, in fact), where the camera gets all over cranked, and we can feel his sudden awareness of how fucked up his life is. He refuses to shoot the villagers, Kylo Ren takes particular notice of him and he does the unthinkable. He rebels.

Then they talk about an awakening in the Force.

Who awakened?

Why... Rey, the girl who hasn't done a god damn thing different from any other day, that's who.  

This isn't just events happening for no reason, this is events happening against every grain of the plot thus far, in defiance of all coherence and plot.    

Never mind that as the movie goes on Finn increasingly goes from a trained Stormtrooper to a hapless bumbling idiot, only as important to the "plot" as the Bothan Spies from A New Hope. You know: The ones only mentioned once or twice and never seen.  

I had a hope the movie might have redeemed itself slightly when Finn takes up the lightsaber to fight Kylo Ren.  Given that Rey had been given every single heroic trait denied Finn throughout the movie, I thought dividing up the usual skills of the jedi (sword fighting and magic fu) between the two characters would be an interesting twist. But no... Finn is a plucky comic relief sidekick given major protagonist screen time.  

I could make a snarky remark about the progressive stack here, but frankly I'm more interested in just how irritating the movie got as it wore on than I am about identity politics.

Its a bad thing when Micheal Fucking Bay is better about setting up major plot points and giving his characters 'things to do'.

That aside I do wish Abrams made up his mind if he wanted to slavishly follow the tropes and traditions of A New Hope or to subvert them.  The constant waffling between homage and near-satire was jarring.  What am I talking about? In the shortest of shorthands: Kylo Ren and his On-Again, Off-Again Darth Vader helmet.  Also: How fucking heavy is that damn thing? Is there any room inside it for his glorious locks of sable hair, much less his actual head?  

Anyway, as I've decided to keep this non-spoilerific, there ya go.  

Final Summation: its a more enjoyable miserable failure of a movie than A Phantom Menace, but its much less deep than Revenge of the Sith.  It is much better acted for the MOST part, but utterly incoherent.




PS: Also:

"Hey, we need to go capture a beach ball droid. Should we send in some stormtroopers?"

"Nah. Just send in the Tie Fighters. They look cooler."
For you the day you found a minor error in a Post by Spike and forced him to admit it, it was the greatest day of your internet life.  For me it was... Tuesday.

For the curious: Apparently, in person, I sound exactly like the Youtube Character The Nostalgia Critic.   I have no words.

[URL=https:

rawma

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1798
Star Wars VII: We've Got Nothing (except stupid CGI tricks)
« Reply #250 on: January 09, 2016, 07:03:58 PM »
Quote from: Spike;872760
The most offensive example may be the very first, and perhaps the subtlest.  Leaving aside Poe, the movie opens with Finn the stormtrooper. Despite a lifetime of indoctrination and training he suddenly decides he doesn't want to be a Stormtrooper anymore.


As later revealed,
SPOILER (Hover over section below to view.)

his previous assignment was in sanitation. He possibly never shot anyone before, nor saw anyone get shot.
Not sure if that makes it better or worse.

Quote
Never mind that as the movie goes on Finn increasingly goes from a trained Stormtrooper to a hapless bumbling idiot


He actually hits things he aims a blaster at; that already makes him better than pretty much every Stormtrooper ever. Probably the more effective forms of Empire/First Order conditioning for Stormtroopers also destroy their ability to aim. Or else nobody can see out of those helmets.

Bedrockbrendan

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12695
Star Wars VII: We've Got Nothing (except stupid CGI tricks)
« Reply #251 on: January 09, 2016, 07:31:39 PM »
Quote from: Spike;872760
 Also: How fucking heavy is that damn thing? Is there any room inside it for his glorious locks of sable hair, much less his actual head?  


His glorious locks are protected by the dark side of the force.

JongWK

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3010
Star Wars VII: We've Got Nothing (except stupid CGI tricks)
« Reply #252 on: January 10, 2016, 11:09:18 AM »
Fantastic movie. I even enjoyed the heavy borrowing from the original trilogy.

Can we have an X-Wing squadron movie with Poe Dameron, please?
"I give the gift of endless imagination."
~~Gary Gygax (1938 - 2008)


Spike

  • Stroppy Pika of DOOM!!!!!
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8105
  • Tricoteuse
Star Wars VII: We've Got Nothing (except stupid CGI tricks)
« Reply #253 on: January 10, 2016, 01:42:16 PM »
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;872777
His glorious locks are protected by the dark side of the force.


That might explain why his boss is bald...
For you the day you found a minor error in a Post by Spike and forced him to admit it, it was the greatest day of your internet life.  For me it was... Tuesday.

For the curious: Apparently, in person, I sound exactly like the Youtube Character The Nostalgia Critic.   I have no words.

[URL=https:

Skarg

  • Venerable Gamer
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2380
Star Wars VII: We've Got Nothing (except stupid CGI tricks)
« Reply #254 on: January 12, 2016, 01:22:40 PM »
I quite agree with Spike's review.

Quote from: Spike;872760
This isn't just events happening for no reason, this is events happening against every grain of the plot thus far, in defiance of all coherence and plot.


Yeah, this was JJ's last chance for me. I'm convinced his defining feature is being anti-continuity. Since I'm very continuity-oriented, this makes him one of my least favorite directors ever, especially since he excretes all over Trek and Star Wars. I wish they'd just had him make his own sci fi films.